The Jenin "Massacre"

The final body count:

33 Israelis

56 Palestininians

Funny looking massacre?


bruce

Oh really, and who performed this "count"?


And how many of each side's dead were heavily armed troops and how many were civilians?


Of course, we could get a more accurate picture if someone less partial went and investigated, like ... oh yeah, the Israelis don't like that idea for some reason.

I think you left out: "and how many were heavily armed terrorists?";-)


From what I've read, Israel may have just cause for concern that this "impartial" UN committee may actually be far from impartial, and that it may produce "findings" (i.e. "conclusions") rather than just the facts without opinions attached. By the way, the UN has a heavily Pro-Islamic/Anti-Israel bias...not unexpected, considering the sheer number of Islamic states in the world vs. one Jewish state. What's worse, the UN will probably always have such a bias...I read that there are 1.2 billion followers of Islam in the world, compared to a mere 15 million Jews. An impartial investigation might be a great idea...if it's really impartial. The prejudices of the UN cannot be simply overlooked, and sending along some Europeans who have a background in social affairs rather than military analysis, and allowing them to draw and publish conclusions (rather than just the facts discovered), is not exactly conducive to impartiality either. I don't know all the details and I'm not saying this is the exact or entire picture,; I'm just saying that Israel may indeed have just cause for concern about the makeup, procedures and intentions of the UN committee. By the way, how about the UN stepping forward and declaring the PLO a terrorist organization? I don't think they have done this. The PLO obviously is, but instead the UN declared Israel a terrorist state. If nothing else that should be ample evidence of strong UN bias right there.

"I think you left out: "and how many were heavily armed terrorists?";-)"


Probably a lot, if you accept Israel's position that anyone who shoots back when the IDF shells and demolishes civilian homes, office buildings, schools and infrastructure is a "terrorist."


I appreciate why Israel would prefer a laundry list of random facts ("a body was found here," "it was a man," "he was dressed in ....") without drawing any obvious inferences. I have no idea, however, why you think that a report that "may produce 'findings' (i.e. 'conclusions') rather than just the facts without opinions attached" would constitute unfair bias. The whole point of the inquiry is to help resolve a dispute over what happened. How this can be done without "conclusions" is beyond me.


It's pretty clear that Israel has something to hide about its conduct in Jenin. It's orignal objections, that the team lacked members with military experience, were met by including military officers and counter-terrorism experts. But now this isn't good enough either. According to Sharon, in today's NYT, "No effort to doubt us or put us on an international trial will prevail." No one being allowed to "doubt" the official Israeli line.


"the UN has a heavily Pro-Islamic/Anti-Israel bias...not unexpected, considering the sheer number of Islamic states in the world vs. one Jewish state."


No, this doesn't follow. The UN General Assembly votes critical opposed by Israel carry in numbers far greater than what the "Islamic" countries could ever muster, typically with Europe and Latin America voting overwhelmingly against Israel and the U.S. and the occasional Central American client thrown in. As for the Security Council, the Islamic countries have no permanent representation there at all, yet half of the U.S.'s 70-odd vetoes (the record) have concerned the Middle East, usually Israel. The voting pattern reveals that it's not the Islamic countries ganging up on Israel, it's the U.S. and Israel alone against the rest of the world.


"the UN declared Israel a terrorist state"


When?

Let me see if I can guess about who is calling the count a "final" one ....


Initial Palestinian reports of hundreds killed in the Jenin refugee camp appears to be wrong. The BBC reports some 45 dead and another 20-30 Palestinians unaccounted for. I'm not sure why this can't qualify as a "massacre," the term for "savage and indiscriminate killing." It's not like there's some minimum number of bodies required.


The real issue isn't whether there was a massacre, but whether Israel violated laws of warfare that it insists, together with the U.S., on holding other countries to. There are very serious, well-documented claims of denial of medical services for the wounded. Unless you think it's okay for our enemies to do this, Israel should be called to account.

Perhaps I am not recalling it exactly correctly when I said that the UN declared Israel a terrorist state. However there was a resolution in recent years (I'm sure you can help me out with this) which was something along those lines.


Maybe Israel has something to hide or or maybe they have legitimate concerns...or maybe both. I know this: if the US had been coming under repeated attacks as Israel has for the last two years, we would have already wiped out as many as necessary to stop it. Period. If that had to mean a whole country gone then that's what we would have done--there is no way in hell we would have tolerated such a long string of continuing attacks upon our homeland. Actually, I think Israel has shown immense restraint.


Most of the world, numerically speaking, is comprised not of first-world countries, but of second and third-world countries. Certainly the US is Israel's staunchest supporter, and Europe is somewhere in the middle (but Europe has a great deal of trade with Islamic countries which can contribute to biased interests as well). ALL totalitarian governments in the world typically vote against Israel of course. So do most poor countries. So do ALL Islamic countries. Given that Islamic countries are pretty much anti-Semitic (it's just a question of degree) I don't see how you can say that the sheer weight of numbers of Islamic countries doesn't contribute to a UN bias. Europe has a lot of trade with Arabs which can bias their votes as well.

When Palestinians put terrorist gunmen and bombers into ambulances in order to hide them and move them, and in order to execute attacks from them, how can you really expect Israel to allow unimpeded access by these vehicles? I mean, seriously. If the Palestinians want to fight fair that's one thing. But hiding gunmen in mosques, or miltary supplies in hospitals (as Saddam Hussein did) isn't in keeping with calls for humanitarian concerns. If the Palestinians wanted ambulances to have free reign, they shouldn't have been secreting armed combatants, snipers and bombers in them. I read a report of one of these ambulances opening fire on Israeli soldiers. So it's THEIR fault. End of story.

Might is right. Anyone with a gun in their hand is a terrorist. And it's OK to kill them. And all their neighbours as well. Just in case.

I'm saying self-defense against deadly attacks is all right. If we were being attacked repeatedly in a similar deadly manner, by, say, Mexico (just as a geographical example), we would do whatever we had to in order to stop it.


I'm not saying the first thing we would do would be to flatten the whole country; of course not, that would probably be the absolute last resort which would almost surely not come to pass. However we would not tolerate it--period--and what's more, we should not tolerate it. If we were Israel right now I bet the Palestinians would have long ago realized they had better curb terror instead of support it, because we wouldn't have put up with continued terror attacks for nearly so long. The recent incursions would have happened LONG ago and would have been one of the FIRST things we did if Bush were the Prime Minister of Israel and we were citizens there coming under regular terror attacks. Israel has truly shown much restraint. It only took ONE major attack on the USA to result in the recent actions in Afghanistan--and none too soon, either--and if you think I'm a nutjob, just remember I called for NATO and the free world to hunt down the world's worst terrorists months before 9/11 occurred. I read enough to know how evil-minded and dangerous these actual nutjobs truly are. You probably just figured that out after 9/11.

“I read a report of one of these ambulances opening fire on Israeli soldiers. So it's THEIR fault.”


The only incident like this I’m aware of allegedly occurred last July. Israel retracted it’s allegation after Red Crescent (basically, the Palestinian branch of the Red Cross) obtained a TV news video of the incident showing that the IDF had fabricated its account. (Red Crescent society home page and http://www.palestinercs.org).


A Jerusalem Post story last month (cited below), which quotes an IDF spokesman, is consistent with the statement I found at electronicintifada.com: “To date the Israeli occupation forces have not been able to document a single episode in which Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS, the Arab World's version of Red Cross) personnel were involved in any activities other than the discharging of their duties to attend the injured and dying.”


Although the facts about this practice are rarely reported and virtually never emphasized in maintstream U.S. media, I doubt there’s much question that Israel restricts access to medical services in order to terrorize Palestinian civilians.


Here are five examples (from 120) from a petition to the Israeli High Court of Justice submitted in March 2001 by Physicians for Human Rights – Israel and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society:


23.1.2001 – loss of consciousness (location: Ramallah area)

A 29-year-old woman from Ghania in the Ramallah area had suffered from anaemia since giving birth five months before (2 months before the incident). When she lost consciousness in her home, her husband took her in his own car in the direction of Ramallah hospital. The car was stopped and delayed for 25 minutes at a military roadblock near the Israeli settlement of Dolev. The husband called First Aid headquarters for help. A Palestinian Red Crescent vehicle immediately set out from El-Bireh in the direction of the roadblock. On its way, the ambulance met the husband’s car, after it had finally been allowed entry. The medical team found the woman dead in the car. The ambulance took her body to Ramallah hospital to confirm death.

20.1.2001 – Bleeding (location: El-Ahali)

An ambulance evacuating a bleeding woman was shot at by soldiers, damaging its tires. The soldiers confiscated the team’s radio, cutting off possibility of contact. They searched the ambulance and told the team to lie down on the ground for 15 minutes. After this, at gunpoint, they ordered them to drive on, while one of the tires was flat. The ambulance then continued to the house of the patient, just 10 meters away. The ambulance team evacuated the patient while calling another ambulance to take her to Alia hospital.

7.1.2001 – road accident (location: Bidya – Nablus hospital)

An ambulance evacuating three people injured in a road accident was detained at Hawara roadblock, and forbidden entry. The soldiers’ claim was that the patients had not been injured in a road accident. After coordination with the Red Cross, the ambulance was allowed passage - after a delay of 45 minutes.

9.12.2000 – Gas inhalation (location: Arrabeh – Sili Ed-Daher)

When an ambulance reached a high school for boys in order to evacuate a patient who had inhaled gas, the ambulance team was stopped by military vehicles, and the soldiers asked questions and caused provocations. The pupils begged them to allow the ambulance to pass. When the relief officer got out of the ambulance, the soldiers hit him with a large stone, after which he fell to the ground; the soldiers also shot at the ambulance, hitting a man inside it. One of the Israeli officers said to the relief officer: ‘we want you to die, you and the pupils’. The ambulance was delayed for 15 minutes.

15.2.2001 – cardiac arrest (location: Arrabeh – Jenin hospital)

An ambulance evacuating a patient who had had a heart attack was delayed for about 15 minutes by numerous unmanned barriers - cement bricks and dirt ramps - on the roads. The patient died.


A more graphic example can be seen in the following link, a report where IDF troops refused to allow a civilian Palestinian mother, the wife of a civilian school administrator, to obtain medical treatment after their tank fired into their home. The ordeal was captured by an Israeli film crew accompanying the soldiers, and it shows the soldiers ransacking the house (nothing was found), her kids looking on while Mom bleeds to death (she died when they eventually got her to a hospital). You can download the video. http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?category=World&story=/news/2002/03/19/mideast_censor020319 (Or search CBC News (not CBS) keyword "Ismail Hawarjeh."


IDF attacks on Red Crescent ambulances and emt’s are a category by themselves. As of April 5, 2002, Red Cresent reported 180 IDF attacks on their vehicles, injuring 136 personnel and damaging 80% of their ambulance fleet. Medical personnel are routinely detained, harrassed and beaten, and sometimes simply shot and killed.


Meanwhile, back in the states, we read little of this. Instead, we stories like the ones you cite, basically IDF allegations reported as facts. For example, in March of this year there was a widely circulated report (I first read it in a Wall Street Journal editorial) about a bomb belt found underneath a small boy in a Red Crescent ambulance. It’s been reported as fact all over the internet, particularly by pro-Israel hardliners. A closer examination reveals a more interesting story.


According to the Jerusalem Post, 3/30/02, the explosives were discovered at a roadblock. “The IDF Spokesman noted that this is not the first incident in which an ambulance has been used by Palestinians to transport weapons or terrorists, citing the female suicide bomber - a nurse - who perpetrated an attack in Jaffa Road Jerusalem in January.” That’s an odd precedent to cite, given that Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs admits (on it’s website) that she wasn’t a “nurse” but an off-duty medical secretary and that “Israeli security officials do not yet have a clear picture of how Idris made her way from Ramallah to Jerusalem.” Instead, Israel claims ambiguously that she may have used “a medical vehicle or medical accreditation” to carry out her attack. In other words, the government has no idea if Red Crescent vehicles were involved.


The Post article includes another interesting admission by the IDF: Until this incident, “we were unable to provide evidence [of ambulances and medical teams for the transfer of terrorists and explosives], but now we have succeeded and a terrorist has been apprehended with 10 kilograms of explosives.” In other words, until two months ago, after years of harassment, the IDF had no evidence that ambulances were being used to transport terrorists or explosives.


Also consider this coincidence, reported in the Jerusalem Post on 3/28/02:


"The ambulance driver, Islam Jibril, a resident of the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, told interrogators he received the belt from Muhammad Titti, a senior Tanzim activist close to Palestinian Authority West Bank security chief Marwan Barghouti."


Marwan Barghouti was one of the most respected Palestinian activists in the West Bank (he interviewed in Newsweek last month), with a long history of trying to work with Israel and renouncing terrorism, although he recently had refused to criticize the suicide bombers and had called for military attacks against the IDF in the occupied territories. The IDF arrested him and turned him over to Shin Bet last month. So the first evidence that a Red Crescent ambulance had carried explosives also ties a key Israeli opponent. A real coup, this one.


Now consider Red Crescent’s version of the facts, first, from it’s press release of 5/27/02:


“The ambulance, en route from Nablus to Ramallah, with a mother, 3 children, a doctor and a PRCS medic were first stopped and searched at a checkpoint south of Nablus. It was permitted to pass. The ambulance passed three other checkpoints before it was forced to stop south of Ramallah by an Israeli army patrol which fired shots in the air as the ambulance approached. The ambulance stopped. All passengers were ordered out and the Israeli soldiers told them that the ambulance was carrying explosives. The driver, Mr. Islam Jibril, was arrested. All others were released. The driver has been with the PRCS for over 6 years and has treated many injured Israelis and Palestinians over the past year.”


Another coincidence: the ambulance passes three checkpoints before being stopped by a seemingly waiting army patrol.


PRCS’s latest press release announced that it was suing the IDF for fabricating the event:


“Legal proceedings will commence on Apr 27th. PRCS will demonstrate Israeli army collusion and plans to plant an explosive device as part of ongoing disinformationand slander campaign against Red Crescent. Recent released images show that thesupposed Israeli army "flying" checkpoint was "somehow ready" with video cameras to capture the event. Additionally, army statements that the driver "confessed" have now been proven false.”

More total propaganda. M has been pleasant with you. It is obvioous that you are a supporter of Palestinian terrorists. Frankly, I think the US government should keep you under close surveillance and bring the harshest penalty down upon you for any violation. You are a danger to the average American citizen,

There may be something in what you say but I find it a bit hard to simply take the word of the Palestinians over the Israelis, and I do recall a news report more recently than last July. It would be tragic and worthy of condemnation if the Israelis were denying medical services not out of legitimate security concerns but out of a desire to inflict harm and put fear into the civilians. However let's not forget that the Palestinians do such things as dress snipers/bombers as priests or nuns, hide in holy sites, etc. and tactics of these sorts are simply not in keeping with a desire to keep humanitarian needs separate from warfare. I would bet at least some of these ambulances have been carrying militants and not for medical purposes. However, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle for both sides in this matter and both probably deserve blame.


What I don't understand is why the terrorists don't simply attack the Israeli military and the Israeli politicians. Why must they target the most innocent and uninvolved persons? It is this which makes their actions so morally repugnant and reprehensible in my eyes. If the PLO wished to fight Israel and they confined their attacks to military/politician targets, except for occasional collateral damage, I might not agree with their actions but I would not find it all so incredibly morally repugnant. I know you see some of these things as hair-splitting differences, but I see them as major differences. In other words if I have a bone to pick or a fight to fight with someone, that's who I am going to be fighting (if necessary of course)...I am not going to ignore that person and instead target some kids living down the street from him, for heaven's sake.


Also, we hear talk about the root causes of terrorism, and how oppression, poverty, and humiliation are the causes. Well they are contributing factors, yes, but they are not the underlying causes, because throughout history most groups which have been downtrodden like that have not resorted to terrorism--American slaves, Ghandi, the US Revolutionaries, etc. Also, countries such as the USSR and Nazi Germany have engaged in true state terrorism on massive scales, and the terrorists in those cases were not the oppressed but rather those in power. So I tend to agree with Netanyahu when he says that the root cause of terrorism is a totalitarian mindset, not poverty, oppression, etc. This is why we see more terrorists in the Islamic world than elsewhere, because their mindset tends to be very rigid due to their culture and religion. Look at bin-Laden's decree that they would attack us until the last US soldier is removed from Saudi soil. Just what are those soldiers doing to bother him anyway? Nothing...absolutely nothing...about 4500 of them sitting in a remote corner of the country. In fact if it wasn't for the US soldiers, Saudi Arabia would now have pictures of Saddam Hussein plastered all over the streets and half of their 5000 Princes would have been executed. But bin-Laden and his ilk view the soldiers as infidels and are willing to wage jihad over it...now THAT'S a totalitarian mindset.


Of course the Palestinian/Israeli matter is far more complex, but the Palestinians would perhaps have a lot more sympathy if they didn't go blowing up kids at a birthday party and things like that.

I will not get into a flame war with Alger, but his assertion that "to date the Israeli occupation forces have not been able to document a single episode in which Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS, the Arab World's version of Red Cross) personnel were involved in any activities other than the discharging of their duties to attend the injured and dying" is false or misleading.


Whether or not PRCS personnel were involved, it is undisputed that PRCS ambulences have been used to transport bombs. Indeed, even the International Committee of the Red Cross (which has a heavy anti-Israel bias) was forced to issue a statement condemning this conduct. A link to the ICRC statement is attached.

You are very wise. Alger will flame prejudicial racism. Malmuth will support him. This forum would lose another rational voice when Malmuth banned you for refuting the obvious hate that Alger puts forth.

First, you are falsely claiming the quote as my assertion, although I supplied the source in my post.


This is the incident I discussed at the end. You quoted the PRCS's first press release, which acknowledged "the reports" of explosives being transferred and condemned the practice to the extent it occurred. You overlooked PRCS subsequent statements identifying the suspicious circumstances of the event, claiming that the driver denied confessing to doing as much (most of the media reports focused on his alleged on- the-spot confession), asserting that the IDF planted the explosives (at a time, I might add, when the IDF desperately needed some pretext for their practice), and announcing the commencement of legal action over the alleged attempt to frame it. In other words, this might well be a replay of the incident last year when the IDF withdrew charges that ambulance personnel had fired at it after the PRCS produced video tape that proved the reports were fabricated. Some "proof."


You also ignored the admission by the IDF's spokesman about this particular incident being "the first" instance where explosives had been found in a Palestinian ambulance. If this was the first incident, and it happened in March of this year, what accounts for the routine delays and disruptions of emergency medical care and harrassment and beating of emergency medical personnel that have occurred over the last several years? Is there any question in your mind that, if some enemy aggressor state, such as the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, had done the same thing that the IDF does, that it would have been widely condemned in the U.S. as the cruel repression of a resistant civilian population?

"I find it a bit hard to simply take the word of the Palestinians over the Israelis"


I'm not sure why you put it that way, but no one except the media is asking you to take anyone's "word" for anything based on national origin. I'm not. Weigh the evidence you're aware of, draw your own conclusions.


Why do they kill civilians? Because they're a bunch of mean bastards that don't care much for the lives of people that aren't like them. Lot of this going around. I don't really know and don't care "why," I don't need to get there. I wouldn't support it even if it worked.


On your second and third paragraphs, I'm not really keen on the ability of any violence to do much, but most of the allegedly "terrorist" incidents involve attacks against the IDF and armed settlers, and occur inside the West Bank and Gaza. The Al-Akqsa Brigades recently "announced" that they were restricting their attacks to such targets. Israel will still call it "terrorism" (although the media has recently been reluctant to adopt this designation without qualification), even though under international law armed resistance to occupying forces is legal.

I expect you call for everyone you think is a good guy to hunt down everyone you think is a bad guy, all the time. So you're bound to be "right" once in a while.

Just released a 48-page report on the recent events in Jenin. (Link below).


"Human Rights Watch said in a report it had identified 52 Palestinians who were killed during eight days of fierce house-to-house fighting in the West Bank camp last month, of whom 22 were civilians."


"Many of the civilians were killed willfully or unlawfully," it said. "Human Rights Watch also found that the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) used Palestinian civilians as human shields and used indiscriminate and excessive force during the operation."


"The [HRW] team gathered, corroborated and cross-checked accounts from victims and witnesses, but the Israeli army refused to provide it with information.


"The group said U.S.-supplied helicopters had fired anti-tank missiles and other ordnance into the camp, "in some cases making insufficient efforts to identify legitimate military targets and avoid hitting civilian houses.


Although the report found no evidence that the IDF had "massacred hundreds" in Jenin, "The abuses we documented in Jenin are extremely serious, and in some cases appear to be war crimes," it said.


"Criminal investigations are needed to ascertain individual responsibility for the most serious violations. Such investigations are first and foremost the duty of the Israeli government, but the international community needs to ensure that meaningful accountability occurs."


Meanwhile, back in the U.S. "The House and Senate voted overwhelmingly today in rapid succession to express virtually unqualified support for Israel in its recent military operations...." NYT 5/2/2


"In emotional debate House members and Senate members, from the left and from the right, repeatedly branded Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat as a "terrorist" and as a "despot." A minority of lawmakers expressed reservations about the policies of Mr. Sharon." Id.

The world's worst terrorist leaders ARE bad guys. Do you disagree with this statement?

I don't know, Chris. It sounds like there may have been war crimes committed, but parts of it also sound like the conclusions may be based on quite fallible judgment--like the parts about "making insufficient efforts to identify legitimaye military targets"--"insufficient" according to whom? Would military experts instead of human rights watchdogs necessarily share this opinion? It might be a bit hard to be sure what are "insufficient efforts" without having been there at the time of the fighting. Likewise, "indiscriminate or excessive force" is a sliding variable as well. Just as in a policeman shooting at an armed and dangerous suspect, it can sometimes be hard to determine exactly what occurred or how good the policeman's judgment was (for instance was the gunman about to fire or surrender?) It can be even more foggy in battles. Without specifics, I am a bit leery of some such conclusions. It says they gathered information from victims and witnesses but let's not forget that there were some pitched battles and dangers in some of these areas. The IDF may have been correct in that it had to fire on certain areas. Victims or witnesses aren't necessarily going to know how many armed militants were nearby and posing a danger. You also have to allow for at least a bit of victim or Palestinian exagerration since the IDF refused to answer questions.


Some of these types of things are pretty clear-cut and others just aren't. There isn't nearly enough information to go on in that article. It might be very easy for a human-rights watchdog investigator to see the carnage and hear some stories, and not realize that the situation was such that a certain area had to be fired upon, speaking from a military standpoint. Also, talking about the IDF using Palestinians as human shields is a bit ironic, isn't it, when the Palestinian militants themselves used the whole Palestinian population in the area as their human shields and cover and camouflage whenever possible, employing hide-and-seek tactics, interspersed with attacks. Why doesn't the Human Rights Watch address this issue, or present some conclusions about Palestinian uses of terror attacks. IMO there is a lot of bias out there, and even from many of your posts and sources we see quotes and links to Pro-Palestinian sources of information. It is 100-1 that CNN is more objective than most of those. The Palestinian sourcess are probably even more lopsided than Israeli newspaper reports. Furthermore just look how they lie: about the great intercepted arms shipment by sea a few months ago, and now their LYING claim that hundreds of Palestinians were massacred in Jenin. Even this Human Rights Watch which is probably at least a bit biased against Israel has said there is NO evidence of a massacre. So the PLO LIED to the world, flat-out, on two very major issues very recently (and was caught at it). Somehow I'm not a bit surprised. Yasser Terrorfat is a terrorist pure and simple.


After the Palestinians get their homeland (and it looks like they will, things are definitely moving forward and the world seems to be ready to get it done pretty soon) I really wonder what will happen. If Hamas, etc. continue the attacks on Israel even after that, which could well happen, then I would hope Israel goes after every last terrorist in Palestine. It looks like they're going to have a real chance for lasting peace and sovereignty coming up, let's hope the fanatics don't blow it for them.

Suicide bombers target almost exclusively civilians. Quit cloaking your racism in spin.

If you're interested in looking at this further, here's an interesting link.

Chris, objectively speaking, it seems extremely inconclusive and appears to have an major assumption built-in to it which could easily be wrong. In the fifth sentence of the first non-bold-faced paragraph he states as a mattter of fact that hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed. Yet his entire argument is based on mathematical averaging of population density throughout the camp and the assumption that the average population density was represented in the most heavily concentrated battle zone where the most houses were demolished. Besides the fact that this might not be an accurate starting point, it seems likely to me that as hostilities approached, some ordinary residents would have managed to flee the area. Plus, more armed militants there to start with probably means a lower percent of unarmed civilian residents. Also, his conclusion is opposed to the Human Rights Watch group's conclusion, which itself probably has a bias towards the Palestinian side, and was itself there after the fact to investigate.


All in all, I'm glad you submitted this because it is interesting and could possibly have merit, but it again raises the question in my mind as to why so many of your linked submissions are one-sided and are "little sources." I believe in being objective, but the evidence you submit is virtually all one-sided.

I personally doubt that hundreds died (at Jenin, clearly hundreds died throughout the West Bank) because more people would be unaccounted for. One impediment to certainty might be that Israel also seized or ruined many civic records, such as census and school information, along with roads, buildings, and the systems for water, sewage and electricity, further evidence that the assault was one against civilian infrastructure instead of just "terrorist infrastructure."